Cyclist Hit By Dump Truck On Brooklyn's 3rd Ave. Dies, Cops Say

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — A 62-year-old e-bike rider who was in critical condition after a dump truck hit him on Third Avenue died last week, police said.

Abdul Bashar, who is from the Bronx, died on Wednesday, Sep. 18 in Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he had been staying with a severe head injury after getting knocked off his bike a week before on Sunday, Sep. 8.

He had been cycling north on the Third Avenue sidewalk just after 9:30 p.m. when the Mack dump truck, which was driving south on the corridor, tried to make a left turn onto 12th street.

Bashar went off the sidewalk as the dump truck, which had a green light, got to the crosswalk. The truck's bumper hit Bashar off his bike, police said.

The 32-year-old driver of the mack dump truck, which the Daily News reports was off-duty FDNY firefighter Robert Blankenship, stayed on the scene of the crash. There have been no arrests yet and the crash is under investigation, police said.

Bashar's family told the Daily News that he had brain surgery after the crash and had been in a coma since. The 62-year-old had been making a delivery for the nearby Indian restaurant, Kanan, when he was hit, they said.

He is the 23rd cyclists who has died on New York City streets in 2019 and the third killed on Brooklyn's Third Avenue. Two others, one in January and one earlier this summer, were killed several blocks south on the corridor, which elected officials and advocates have long called one of the more dangerous in the borough.

Of the 23 cyclists who have died this year, 16 were hit in Brooklyn.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $58.4 million "Green Wave" bike safety plan this year in response to the spike in cyclist deaths, which are more than double what they were in all of 2018.

Bashar's accident specifically led to a renewed call for waste trucks to be overhauled on city streets. Three cyclists who have been killed in the last month were hit by private waste haulers, according to Transportation Alternatives.

"Abul Bashar’s death is a testament to the ongoing danger posed by large commercial vehicles, specifically waste hauling trucks, to people walking and biking," TransAlt's Deputy Director Marco Conner said. "Since 2014, more than 50 New Yorkers have been killed and hundreds more injured by private waste hauling vehicles."

The street safety advocates said a bill proposed by Brooklyn Council Member Antonio Reynoso, which would limit private waste trucks on city streets, could help prevent the fatalities.

The bill would limit one private company to each of the city's commercial waste zones instead of the current system where private haulers create contracts with individual businesses. The free-for-all system makes it so some trucks have as many as 1,000 stops in a single night, Reynoso has said.